A Glimpse into Chinese Law-Making - China Real Time Report - WSJ

National Peoples Congress in full session

Stanley Lubman - one of the most seasoned and sensible of the `Chinalaw' hands has an informative column about the progressive development of  Chinese legislation.  In one of history's strange ironies the Communist Party - under Mao's leadership - instead of being the rule-bound bureaucracy we associate with the lat USSR - disparaged law and dismantled its institutions - including the Ministry of Justice!
It has been a long road back.  A little recognized fact about the People's Republic is how weak its government is:  and a lot that has to do with its thin structure of statutes, and even thinner regulatory structures.  Professor Lubman has some useful observations in this regard.  - GWC
A Glimpse into Chinese Law-Making - China Real Time Report - WSJ:
by Prof. Stanley Lubman, University of California
"The most that Westerners hear about Chinese law usually pertains to human rights violations, examples of arbitrary official conduct and a weak judiciary. While these problems remain critical, they tend to overshadow an equally important, though less headline-ready, topic: How laws are drafted in China and what that means for the country’ progress toward greater legality.


Legislative drafting has been going on quietly for decades, and some of the results of these efforts were on display at a presentation by Chinese officials given as part of an annual bilateral legal exchange program held recently in San Francisco."

'via Blog this'

China: Will Law Reforms Reduce Forced Home Demolitions? - China Real Time Report - WSJ

Berkeley law professor Stanley Lubman reports:

In October 2010, thugs hired by a demolition company to destroy a house forcefully entered it and brutally murdered the homeowner. The crime, one of a series of similar violent incidents in recent years, was widely reported and sparked popular outrage. Last week, the State Council published a regulation that would end the power of local governments to order demolition of urban residences and require disputed cases to be decided by courts (report in Chinese)....

Will Law Reforms Reduce Forced Home Demolitions? - China Real Time Report - WSJ

PRC 60th anniversary - Stanley Lubman on rule of law in China

Stanley Lubman preaches "cautious pessimism" toward progress on the rule of law in China at the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. Modest optimism might be a more accurate formulation - but it is de rigeur for western commentators to see the glass as half-empty. The Berkeley law prof's essay is posted on the Wall Street Journal's China Real time Report blog.

Lubman's Bird in a Cage was one of the first serious treatments of the developments in the PRC legal system. He notes the great increase in professionalism in the Chinese judiciary and in its burgeoning law schools. My own experience - principally via the strong friendships I have formed with half a dozen Chinese law professors over the past 9 years - is that Chinese lawyers are serious and meticulous about the law. They are conveying this attitude, methods, and values to their students. It is noteworthy that law is an undergraduate degrees and that Chinese universities are producing thousands of graduates who have majored in law.